RELIGION ALWAYS INTERPRETS SCRIPTURE LITERALLY
It does not require a lot of humility to admit that there is much about God that we do not understand. That same humility should also lead us to admit that there is much in the Bible that we do not understand. It might even be fairly said that the ratio of what we do know about God and the Bible is very small compared to what we do not know. Therefore, those who are serious about  knowing God should also want to know the Mystery of the Bible because it speaks of the deep things of God.

Just as it would be a discredit to God to say that he is a God of stories, history and religious activity, it is wrong to think of the Bible as stories and history and religious stuff. If we say that the Bible in its literal content is an accurate representation of God, then we admit that we have a very small view of God.

If we have a big view of God, however, we will accept that the Bible is a book of life in finely articulated laws and commandments while also being a book of literary techniques, poetry, allegories, multiple meanings, mysteries and parables that all tell us about him and how we should relate to him and to one another.

The legal/religious/historical writings found in the literal Bible are relatively easy to understand because we are trained to be logical and rational. These are the writings out of which religion is crafted, but they do not contain the ultimate, spiritual messages that God wants to convey. Those spiritual messages come by listening to God’s voice — not by written words or words spoken by a false prophet. If we do not listen to God’s voice and only read and listen to words written and spoken by human mediators, we create an image of God that says that he is logical and rational. That is a wrong interpretation that leads us into religion. We tend to do this even though God tells us that his ways are not our ways.

The literary writings, however, are not easy to grasp because they require deep thought, inquiry and patience. More to the point, understanding comes only when we hear God’s voice explaining them to us.

Another big reason these literary meanings do not come to us easily is that most of us are not trained or experienced in such mindful investigation. Instead, we are trained at home, in school and in our churches and synagogues to interpret everything we read literally. Sadly, we are not trained to listen for God’s voice to teach us about the symbolic meanings of scripture.

This kind of training is a great handicap for those who want to know God and understand his ways. If we think it too great a handicap, we might even quit trying and settle for whatever bits of truth we might glean from our feeble, literal interpretations or from the teachings of religious leaders. And if we take some parts of the Bible literally, we might conclude that knowing him is impossible. That would be a mistake, however, in view of other scriptures that tell us that we can know him.

These challenges are too great for most people. The literary stuff is hard to understand because it lacks the kind of detail that we require in order to do a good job of fulfilling our compulsion to act out our religious beliefs. The stories, especially those in the Old Testament, that are not literary are so unbelievable and without apparent application or relevance for contemporary culture that we accept them only for their historical value without a thought for their spiritual meaning. And the books of the prophets are also regarded as irrelevant for modern times because we do not understand the literary symbolism.

For all these and other difficulties we have in reading and understanding the Bible, we discount what we do not understand and look to religious leaders to fill in the blanks for us with their interpretations. And anything they might offer that sounds plausible is accepted as valid because there is no one who offers another view or interpretation.

What we are left with, therefore, is religion based on the literal interpretations of the Bible based on the reports of generations of articulate and convincing religious leaders whom people have trusted for generations to create doctrines out of those literal interpretations. This practice has led to religion of the people, by the people and for the people. It is not, however, what God wants. It is all man-made. It is all flesh and no spirit.

Religionists like to say that the Bible is the essence of who God is, how he thinks and how he operates. Jews carry their Torahs through the congregation so that people can affectionately touch it and kiss it. Christians hold up their Bibles in church and claim to believe every word in it. They are sincere, but they err in their failure to listen to God’s voice.  They struggle and stumble trying to find God in the literary techniques, poetry, allegories, multiple meanings, mysteries and parables. But lacking success in understanding God in symbolic scriptures, they concentrate on the literal commandments which they think they understand. Jews have it a bit easier because they don’t bother with the New Testament. But they also struggle and stumble trying to obey the multitude of laws, commands and ordinances that God has laid out for them.

The result is that, those who take the Bible only literally, have a small, incomplete, and even distorted view of God and how they should relate to him. They live small, busy, religious lives that do not well represent God’s character to the world. They are hypocrites who work hard at practicing the religion they find in the literal Bible. They are always learning but never knowing the deeper, finer truths about God. They are spiritual infants who do not know good from evil and never mature into New Covenant disciples.

That is the bad news. The good news is that it is possible to know God and it is possible to hear his voice. When these qualities are present in us, God says we are mature. And if it is possible to know God it must also be possible to understand the Bible because it appears that the Bible is the only source of reliable information about God. It is not easy to grasp, and our understanding will never be complete, but there is always a greater measure of knowing that is possible for those who are willing to rise above their literal interpretations and abandon their religious ways and their chosen teachers in favor of learning about God directly from his mouth as provided in the New Covenant.

AUTHORS’ NOTE: See God’s written word and God’s voice for more about hearing God’s voice.

Judaism and Christianity says: “the Bible is the only source of information about God.” Nevertheless, both religions find it necessary to interpret the Bible for others and amend the literal Bible by adding to it and subtracting from it. Jews have added to it with their “oral Torah.” Christians have added to it with the theology of a multitude of theologians who claim to interpret the Bible’s deep teachings with wisdom and understanding. Jews subtract from the Bible by ignoring many warnings by God and the prophets about serving other gods. Christians subtract by ignoring difficult New Testament scriptures and most of the Old Testament.

Since religious leaders down through the ages have unashamedly added to and subtracted from God’s word, the rest of us should be careful that we are not led astray by their teachings. We should recognize that by accepting Biblical interpretations of the Bible we have placed the authors of those interpretations as idols ahead of God’s spoken word. That effectively makes them “other gods”.

Instead of listening to and following these other gods, we should assume that God is able to teach us directly by his spirit without the aide of an intermediary teacher. When we continuously go to human teachers to learn about God, we show that we do not trust that he can and will teach us directly. We will learn something, of course, but it in God’s eyes, we will be following other gods.

We must be careful, therefore, that we do not underestimate God by taking a casual approach to knowing him and settling for something less than his fullness. We underestimate and devalue God when we depend on religious leaders to teach us everything they know about him instead of trusting him to teach us about himself directly — without the help of a human mediator. Thus we are limited by what these human teachers know. It is not a good strategy to trust men and women to teach us more than we trust God. That makes those men and women gods.

COMMENTARY: See Religion is Idolatry for more about identifying other gods that we serve.

Religion is good at creating, teaching and enforcing regulations and various forms of Godliness, but it lacks spiritual power. But religion cannot do as good a job teaching us about God as God can do himself. Religion places real limits on knowing God. Select doctrines, rituals, music and teachers all create a box for God. These religious forms effectively limit God from doing anything outside the box because religious institutions work hard to keep religious adherents inside their respective boxes. God calls this Injustice, Slavery, Oppression and Affliction. Moreover, dependence on human teachers violates the first commandment.

STUDY TIP: See Religion is Idolatry

The reason we say we should interpret the Bible symbolically all the time is that this is what we are told to do:

We assume that most religious people who read these scriptures would discount their application with respect to Bible study. The thinking goes like this: “The Bible is God’s holy word and I must take it at face value. It would be blasphemous to look for more than what is printed on the pages.” That is a fine-sounding religious argument, but it is a totally erroneous argument in God’s eyes.

When God says we should not walk by sight, he expects his people to apply that commandment to everything — even Bible study. The part that is unseen in 2 Corinthians 4:18 that we should look for with our spiritual eyes and ears is God’s spoken word. It is easier to come to this deeper understanding when we look at the Greek word Blepo which is translated as ”seen” in English.

God has said in many ways that we should always allow that there is a deeper spiritual meaning to scripture than the literal meaning. In doing this, we exhibit faith that he will speak to us directly by his Spirit. If we did not allow for symbolic meanings to scripture, we would effectively call him a liar. Moreover, if we took the Bible only literally, we would be forced to conclude that God lives in a cloud. Or we would allow our children to play with venomous snakes.

These are silly propositions, of course, but it is just as silly to say that the Bible should be taken only literally. Followers of Jesus should know this well because Isaiah 11:1-3 (see above) is a prophecy about Jesus that says that he does not judge by natural sight or hearing. Rather, he judges (i.e. understands, sees, etc.) with spiritual eyes and spiritual ears. Not only did he speak in parables, he understood the spiritual meaning behind parables. It is the spiritual meaning that is important to God.

The spiritual meaning should be the most important meaning to us. Therefore, we should read by faith (i.e. spiritual/symbolic understanding) and not by sight (i.e. what we interpret literally).